Roland Berger says innovation key to efficiency

China must develop new services and products that address the latest trends in domestic consumer needs, and foster innovation to make manufacturing more efficient to compete with global rivals, the head of a global consulting firm said on Monday.

Even though China's GDP has surged faster than the world's average in the past three decades, the two main forces that have helped to drive this growth are declining - the constant flow of new workers into the labor force and the massive investments in housing, infrastructure and industrial capacity.

Charles-Edouard Bouee, global chief executive officer of Munich-based consulting firm Roland Berger, said: "Now, not only must the country learn to cope with its aging population as the labor force will soon peak - and as well as environmental risks - macroeconomic returns on fixed-asset investments have also fallen."